Intransitives
by Huinesoron
Summary: Not everyone is part of the cultural majority. Series of shorts looking around the edges of the societies of Middle-earth. Spiritual sequel to my story 'Tenth Walkers'.
1. They Do Things Differently In Aman

**They Do Things Differently In Aman**

The ship takes time to build, but we make sure to _take_ the time. There would be little point in setting sail if we foundered before we ever reached Belegaer. And yes, we're well aware that our best chance of making it down our River safely is to depart when the autumn rains run down from the Hithaeglir - but whatever the _gwenwil_ up in Lindon might think, we are still _Edhil_, and all that goes with it. If we miss the rains this season, we can wait for the next - or the one after that.

So we take our time, and make sure to do everything right - and to have a good time while we do so. Laeglir takes the lead in play as in work, as he always does: when our small folk are weary from the unaccustomed labour of carpentry and joining, he always knows the perfect moment to break for a game or a song.

As for me, I'm quite content to lie back in the shade of the trees, watching as he splashes with the others in the shallows, as the river's jewelled droplets sparkle in Anor's light. Laeglir may act the fool at times, but we know him better than that. He is the heart of our little tribe, the life that drives us, and we love him for it.

_I_ love him for it, and have done through all the long years since we first plighted our troth under the ancient stars. I love him for showing me the truth of himself - the fears, the worries, and the strength underneath it all - and for letting me know that however hard times may get, he will always be there for me.

We don't make the first autumn. We work on through fading and into winter, hoping to take advantage of the melting snow when stirring brings Anor once again to our lands. As our breath mists the air and icicles hang from the boughs overhead, Laeglir continues to urge us on. The clown of summer is gone: now he is the encouraging word, the beckoning hand that welcomes us to the fireside, the strong voice that carries us aloft on wings of song and shows us the goal of all our labours, the beauty of the West.

As the first buds begin to form on the trees of our long home, our ship is finally finished. We watch the distant mountains with mingled nervousness and excitement, waiting for the thaw to begin. Laeglir directs the hunters to gather supplies and prepare for the voyage, and when the night comes he tells us the tales that his father once told him, of the wonders of Aman and the Blessed Realm.

As we lie together in our small hut, I whisper to him, asking if he is _sure_ this is a good idea, if we might not be better to ask the _gwenwil_ for aid, or simply stay in the forest. And he smiles, and kisses my brow, and murmurs back, "Mîlion, my heart, the world is changing. The Secondborn are taking it for their own. We must leave - but we will do so on our _own_ terms."

And leave we do, on a crisp spring morning when the River - our River, the River we will never drink from again - is in full flood. Our ship, clunky and misshapen and all the more beautiful for it, bears us up in her arms and carries us away, with Laeglir singing at the prow. He sings our hopes and our fears, our plans and our farewells - and by the end of his song, my eyes sting with salt water, and not from the ocean spray.

The journey is peaceful. Gaerys pays us no heed as we cross the gentle swells of Belegaer, and the heavenly light of Earendil guides us safely into harbour on a warm evening. I stand with the rest of my people by the mast, smiling as Laeglir leaps over the side and warmly embraces the throng who have gathered to greet us. I see him gesturing back at the ship, waving his hands as he explains who we are, where we have come from.

And I see the welcome on the lead greeter's face shift suddenly into confusion and disbelief, while the expressions of those around her harden into something approaching disgust. The wind changes, and in the utter stillness of the evening of Aman, I hear the greeter's next words clearly:

"What do you mean, _he_ is your _husband_?"

* * *

**Disclaimer:** Middle-earth, Aman, and everything associated with them belong to J.R.R. Tolkien. Laeglir and Mîlion, however, are mine.

**Author's Note:** They do things differently in Aman. Or, more precisely: Tolkien told us in some detail how the Eldar of Valinor view marriage and sexuality - the degree to which it is connected to childbearing and -rearing, and the degree to which it _isn't_. He doesn't explicitly say, but is fairly clear by what he _doesn't_ say, that they don't even think about homosexuality over there.

But they do things differently in Aman - or, as it may be, in the back-woods of Second Age Eriador…

**Glossary:** All non-English terms are Sindarin. Since a lot of the words are more familiar in Quenya or English, a short glossary seemed advisable.

_Belegaer_: the Great Western Ocean, between Middle-earth and the Undying Lands.

_Hithaeglir_: the Misty Mountains.

_gwenwil_: Elves of Aman, 'departed Elves' - in this case, the Noldor under Gil-Galad.

_Edhil_: 'Elves'.

_Laeglir_: personal name. 'Summer-song' or 'Singsong', depending on the reading.

_Anor_: the Sun.

fading, stirring: the Sindarin year has six seasons, with 'fading' and 'stirring' either side of winter.

_Mîlion_: personal name. 'Son of Tenderness'.

Secondborn: humans.

_Gaerys_: personal name. Osse, the Maia of storms.


	2. The Last Entwife

**The Last Entwife**

Skinbark studied the young Entmaiden for a long time. There was nothing unusual about this: even among the Ents, Skinbark was considered a cautious and considerate sort. The other Ents sometimes said of a long summer that it was 'as contemplative as Skinbark', though of course they used many more words to do so.

The sun rose overhead and sank towards the far horizon, and Skinbark's gaze never shifted from the youngster. Finally, as the trees of his flock bid their farewells to the light for another day, he spoke.

"You are Lithebloom of the Wide Lands, and you seek to bide with me."

The stars were twinkling in the sky as the youngster replied. "I have considered the options, and find you the closest to my desires. My reasons are…"

Now Skinbark and the youngster spoke in unison, in true Entish speech. With each point that Lithebloom raised, in favour of Skinbark or against his brothers, Skinbark presented his own counters, to which Lithebloom replied in kind. All through the night they debated, or bargained, or considered together, until with the first rays of dawn Lithebloom finally fell silent.

For another few hours Skinbark considered all that had been said, taking it in like the leaves of his charges absorbed the sunlight. Then he said, "I have already a bride of my own. Tressflax the fair, with her golden hair and lissom limbs, who walks-"

"I do not seek to be your bride," Lithebloom interjected, and Skinbark stopped short in shock. The Entmaiden's statement had been no gentle commentary, no contribution to the growth of their conversation: it had been an axe of rejection, cutting Skinbark off at the root.

"I do not seek to be your bride," Lithebloom repeated, as the noonday sun shone down on Skinbark's disbelief. "I wish only to learn from you the ways of the forest and the trees, and to take charges of my own under my boughs." There was a hesitancy about her words, as if she was unable to believe that Skinbark wasn't adding his own roots to the pattern of her speech.

Skinbark remained silent. All through the heat of the afternoon, he let his thoughts take root, and watched their growth. As the sun passed once more into the west, he said, "But you are an Entmaiden. Yours is the wide land beyond the forests, and the taming of all growing things. Yours is the fruit-tree and the grain, the harvest and the sowing…"

As if in apology for her hastiness of the morning, Lithebloom slid gently into the song. "Yet even the fruit-bearing trees are more fair when they are wild, and the reaping brings an end to life that should go on…"

Far into the night they matched their thoughts, and Skinbark grew in surprise that they _were_ matched so well. Every objection that Lithebloom made was one Skinbark agreed with - one that any Ent would have recognised well from his own arguments with the Entwives. Yet Lithebloom was no Enting - she was an Entmaiden, born to the open fields. To have her agree with him felt profoundly unnatural.

And eventually he made that very point: "But you are an Entmaiden, and will blossom into an Entwife, and tend the land as your foremothers have done for years uncounted."

Lithebloom's response was short and simple: "Yet I do not call myself an Entmaiden, nor will I become an Entwife."

Silence fell as the stars circled above the world, and the moon traced his nightly course. As the first light touched the eastern horizon, sending the faintest glow down through the leaves of Skinbark's charges, he smiled on the young, self-declared Ent who stood before him. "As you have spoken, so it is. You shall bide with me, and learn my ways, and take them for your own…"

Lithebloom smiled in return, and, an Entmaiden no longer, joined his voice with Skinbark's and spoke with him into the new day.

* * *

**Disclaimer:** Middle-earth and everything associated with it belongs to J.R.R. Tolkien. Tressflax is my own invention, as is Lithebloom's name, and the details of this story.

**Author's Note: **I don't know what exactly causes some people to feel their gender is distinct from their biological sex, but I see no reason it wouldn't also happen among the Ents.

I've deliberately given Skinbark and his people an inversion of the current attitude here: he strongly believes that roles in life are determined by gender, but has no problems at all with Lithebloom's declaration that her gender is not what people thought it was.

And yes, in my mind, Lithebloom is the Ent later known as Quickbeam - he's certainly 'hasty' enough!


	3. The Shallow South

**The Shallow South**

When Dûrain was five years of age, he first became aware that he was different to the other children of the village. He realised because _they_ realised: he suddenly found himself on the outside of their games, and the insults all children level at each other became, in his case, tainted with a darker edge. "You been rolling in the mud, Dûrain?" "You stay out in the sun too long, Dûrain?"

When Dûrain was eight, his family were driven out of town for the first time. He'd never understood why they had to keep moving, and had been delighted when his father decided they would settle down for him to get a basic education. That had lasted almost a year before the family's neighbours had made it very clear that Dûrain's parents were no longer welcome.

When Dûrain was eleven, he received his first beating. He had finally worked up the courage to talk to a girl of their current village, and she had been friendly enough, if a little nervous. That night, while he was making his way home, her three older brothers came at him from out of an alley and made certain he knew his attentions were unwanted. "A half-troll like you has no business with our sister, _Southron_."

When he was fifteen, he ran away from home.

Dûrain had a plan, one that didn't involve being beaten yet again for the colour of his skin and the country his grandparents had fled. From the hinterlands of Pelargir, where his father had been scratching a living in the shipyards, he struck west across Lebennin. He avoided the villages along Anduin, too many of which his family had already fled from; instead, he made his way across the heart of Gondor's breadbasket.

He earned his food where he could, doing odd jobs and labour in the villages he passed through. Dûrain had always been big for his age, and it served to his advantage now. Very few villagers were willing to give him money, but there was usually someone who would trade him a loaf of bread or a basket of fish.

He learned the hard way what not to do. Accepting more than a tharni or two was a recipe for disaster - the first time he did, no-one in the next village could believe that the 'black troll of Harad' came by his castar honestly, and he swiftly found himself relieved of it and hounded out into the fields. Talking to women lead to beatings; talking to _sailors_ was even worse, since many of them had run afoul of the Corsairs of Umbar at one time or another.

In some towns, people assumed that his Haradrim father had assaulted his Gondorian mother; in others, that his Gondorian father had taken his Haradrim mother captive in one of the innumerable raids back and forth across the border. Dûrain quickly learned not to point out that _both_ his parents were of southern descent - the added explanation that he himself had never even set foot in Harad never seemed to get through.

So Dûrain made his slow, painstaking (and often painful) way across southern Gondor, avoiding trouble whenever possible, fleeing from it if he had to. He crossed the mountains in three days, shivering even in the summer sun, and came down the other side into Dor-en-Ernil. Then more villages, more townsfolk unwilling to accept that dark skin didn't make him a monster - and then, finally, a gleam on the horizon, and the walls of Dol Amroth rising ahead of him.

Gondor's second city was unlike anything Dûrain had ever imagined. The waterways and irritable sailors of Pelargir were nowhere in sight: Dol Amroth was a sculpture of high towers and paved roads, everything neat and tidy and in its place.

And, for no more than the third time in his life, Dûrain saw people like himself. There weren't many of them, it was true, but they were there, and not confined to the edges of society either. He met (and spent his last tharni on a pie from) a shopkeeper whose mother had swum across Anduin to escape Harad, and at least one of the Royal Knights had skin even darker than his own. In fact, he was standing guard on the day Dûrain presented himself for service in the Prince's army - and that, Dûrain thought, was the best omen he had seen for a long time.

* * *

**Disclaimer:** Middle-earth and everything associated with it belongs to J.R.R. Tolkien. Dûrain and his life are my own invention.

**Author's Note:** There is a very powerful justification for racism in southern Gondor: the black folk of Harad are right across the river, and are a long-time enemy who are usually engaged in attacking their shipping. That doesn't make it easier on those who get caught in the wheels, though.

Dûrain (_'Night's Wandering'_) is one of the few characters in this collection who has a clear story about him: he's going to be part of the fleet which razes Umbar under Thorongil (you know, Aragorn), and will have an outside view of the relationship between Gondor's future king, and Dol Amroth's future prince Imrahil. But that's a story I don't intend to write.

And yes, there's a Tolkien-created Gondorian currency! A silver tharni is worth one-quarter of a castar.


	4. Of Carven Stone

**Of Carven Stone**

"No."

"Sviar." Litur ran a hand through his beard, trying to regain control of the conversation. "Your ninety-fifth year has come and gone. Your brothers, your cousins, your mother and I - we had all expected you to choose a husband by now."

"No." Sviar was standing in the centre of her parents' dining cavern, her body held in a way that suggested she'd rather be crouched to spring. Litur couldn't tell whether the gleam in her eyes was that of a trapped rabbit - or a Warg that had sighted its prey.

"What about Jari, Ingi's son?" he suggested. "He's of an age with you, and you have been spending much time in his company. I understand you might not have studied him in this vein before, but-"

"_No_." Sviar straightened up and shook herself slightly. "Father, I appreciate what you are trying to do, but the answer is no. I will _not_ be marrying Jari - or any man."

"But _why_?" Litur couldn't keep the despair from creeping into his voice as he tried and failed to make sense of his daughter's certainty. "Is there some other man you have set your heart on - one who has already wed another?"

Sviar barked out a laugh. "Is that truly the only explanation you can…?" She trailed off, shaking her head. "Father, you have made it clear to me that you would not understand. I will not burden you with a truth you could only reject."

"It would be no burden, but a relief," Litur said, but Sviar was no longer listening. Sweeping up a few items from the table, she turned to the door. Then she seemed to reconsider, and glanced back over her shoulder.

"Perhaps someday," she said, "when Annar and Hannar have given you the grandsons you long for, you will be ready to hear my reasons. But not now." She swept out of the cave, leaving her father bewildered in her wake.

* * *

"I feel guilty."

Loni touched her hand gently to Sviar's cheek. "There is no need for guilt."

"Nevertheless." Sviar looked up at her. "Do you know, my father believed that I might have an interest in Jari."

Loni started back and stared at Sviar. "In my _brother_?"

"Aye." Sviar chuckled. "Apparently I have spent 'much time' around him."

"Around… _him_." Loni smiled lopsidedly. "I suppose such a misapprehension is better than that he should realise the truth."

"I wish, almost, that he _would_." Sviar reached back and clasped Loni's hand in hers. "That it - that _we_ \- could be chiseled out for all to see, and our love known for what it is."

"As do I." Loni gripped Sviar's hand tighter, and pulled the other woman up from her chair. "But it cannot be." She reached her free hand up and ran it through Sviar's beard, then up to caress her cheek. "You know this."

"I do. But…" Sviar groped for words, but found none. She wrapped her arm around Loni, pulled her close. "I love you. And someday, the whole of Durin's folk will know it."

"Someday," Loni agreed with a sad smile, and kissed her lover once again.

* * *

**Disclaimer:** Middle-earth and everything associated with it belongs to J.R.R. Tolkien. All characters in this story are my own.

**Author's Note:** It is a canonical fact that, even though there are only half as many dwarf women as men, some women never marry. Some have their hearts set on someone who isn't interested in them, while others simply don't _want_ to get married. And as in the real world, some of those are certain to be attracted to other women, instead. I can't imagine they had an easy time telling their parents, though...

All dwarf names are taken from the Norse Catalogue of Dwarves, the same source as Tolkien's names.


	5. By Foot or By Took

**By Foot or By Took**

Harlequin Took cheered with the rest of the small crowd as the racers came pelting round the corner. There were three clear leaders as they came into the final straight – Primrose Lapstrew, one of the Baggins twins, and his own cousin Snowdrop. As he watched, Snowdrop put on a burst of energy and pulled ahead – and that wouldn't do at _all_. She still hadn't shut up about the last race she'd won!

Rooting through his bag, Harlequin found an apple core, left over from lunch. He squinted against the sun, took careful aim, and threw.

The core bounced off the side of Snowdrop's head, throwing her off balance. She fell to the side, trying to catch herself – which sent the Baggins straight into her. They tumbled over together, raising clouds of dust, and Primrose swerved neatly past them to cross the finish line.

Over the rapturous applause that greeted Primrose's victory, Snowdrop got to her feet and glared up the hillside. "Hal Took!" she bellowed. "You good-for-nothing, dishonourable ruffian! I know that was you!"

"So what if it was?" Hal yelled back, leaning back on the grass and letting the sun warm his face. "You should've been ready for it!"

"Ready for- I was in a _race_! I wasn't expecting you to _attack_ me! That wasn't _fair_!"

"I bet old Golfimbul wasn't expecting the Bullroarer to attack, either." Hal chuckled. "Are you going to tell _him_ he wasn't being fair?"

"That's not- I didn't-" Snowdrop shut her mouth, folded her arms, and refocused her glare. "Right, that does it. I challenge you to a race."

"Sure, sure." Hal waved a hand lazily in her direction. "Just as soon as I figure out how to use my legs."

"You're not getting out of it _that_ easily," Snowdrop said, and Hal actually sat up at the sly tone to her voice. "This isn't just a running race – it's a _piggy-back_ running race. Tarquin, Mistletoe – grab him!"

"Wha-?" Hal found his arms grabbed suddenly by two of his larger cousins. He struggled, but couldn't break free as they dragged him down the hill towards Snowdrop. "That's not _fair_!"

"Neither was the Bullroarer knocking Golfimbul's head off," said Snowdrop, her voice filled with smugness. "Now get on Tarquin's back – and _no apples_!"

* * *

**Disclaimer:** Middle-earth and everything in it belongs to Tolkien. Except for Bullroarer Took and Golfimbul the Orc, all characters in this story are my own.

**Author's Note:** What, you didn't pick up on the fact that Hal's legs don't work? And why should you? Sometimes people just don't make a fuss - they just accept that their friend has a different body to them, and keep playing. I figured, of all the peoples of Middle-earth, the hobbits are most likely to have that attitude.

Alternate title: 'Not Every Story Has To Be Depressing'.


End file.
